Finding a news story in the international media about the Alternative for Germany (AfD) where the terms “far-right” or “extreme right-wing” are not applied to the party is a difficult task. Media outlets such as the BBC, CNN, ABC and CBC use these epithets and the same pattern can be found amongst newspapers such as The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Guardian, to name but a few. Also, Deutsche Welle, Germany’s state-owned international broadcaster, does so as well of course. Virtually every article about the AfD on its website describes it as “far-right” or “anti-immigrant”. The Left Party, the successor of the SED, the former East German Communist Party (1946-89), gets a free pass and is generally referred to simply by its name. Environmentalist groups or pro-open borders NGOs being described as “extreme” or “radical” by such news organisations would be a novelty indeed.

Violence and intimidation

AfD stands accused of stirring up hatred but, on closer inspection, the party is very often the victim of hatred and indeed violence itself. According to information acquired by Bundestag member Martin Hess from the German Federal Government and reported in Die Junge Freiheit, AfD was the main victim of political violence and intimidation in Germany in the third quarter of 2019. The period saw 52 attacks against the offices or facilities of political parties and 26 of these were carried out against AfD; of the 278 attacks on representatives and members of political parties 127 of them were carried out against AfD members, with 113 of them being classified as having an extreme left-wing political motivation; and of the 905 election posters damaged or destroyed 406 belonged to AfD. Behind the statistics lie some unsettling events: politicians attacked on the street, cars being smashed up and set on fire, threats, offices ransacked and a house daubed with paint and graffiti describing the owner as a “Nazi Pig”.

Parliamentary personae non-gratae

According to AfD Parliamentarian René Springer in an interview with the Swiss weekly newspaper Die Weltwoche in April 2019, AfD members are shunned in the Bundestag. When Parliamentary joint leader Alice Weidel sat down to eat in the Bundestag restaurant other parliamentarians at the adjacent table stood up and walked out whilst the Left Party and SPD members simply refuse to speak to their AfD counterparts. Social ostracism is accompanied by institutional mischief. According to parliamentary rules of procedure, each parliamentary group is entitled to a seat on the Praesidium of the Bundestag but has to gain a majority of votes for its candidate.

Since October 2017 four AfD candidates have been rejected by the members of the other parliamentary groups in an unprecedented campaign to block a party that gained almost 13% of the vote in the 2017 general election and is now represented in all 16 of Germany’s regional Parliaments.

A threat to the constitutional order?

The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has intervened in respect of the AfD question. It announced in January 2019 that the AfD would be treated as a “Prüffall” (“test case”), meaning that there were indications of extremism within its membership. Junge Alternative (Young Alternative), the party’s youth organisation and der Flügel (the Wing), a national-conservative group led by the controversial leader of the Thuringian party, Björn Höcke, would, however, be treated as “Verdachtsfälle”, a more serious measure meaning that intelligence can be used to gather information about the two groups.

The Administrative Court of Cologne did however subsequently hold that the BfV must not use the term “Prüffall” in public as it would unfairly stigmatise AfD. The BfV has itself been at the centre of controversy in recent years. The former head of the agency, Hans-Georg Maaßen, publicly called into question media claims, backed by Merkel, that Germans had “hunted down” foreigners during the Chemnitz disturbances of 2018. Maaßen was subsequently moved to a different position and was eventually placed in early retirement after a controversial farewell speech.

Political programme

Does the AfD deserve such vitriol? A sober and rational analysis of the party’s Political Programme, however, indicates a patriotic centre-right party seeking to protect German state sovereignty, promote direct democracy on the model of Switzerland, bolster federalism, streamline the state and remove party political influence in the arts and culture.

The Programme does call, inter alia, for the defence of the Judeo-Christian and humanist culture of the West, measures to reverse Germany’s demographic decline, the safeguarding of the traditional family, the prohibition of gender and ethnic quotas, stricter controls on mosques and Imams, and also opposes government energy policy and some of the claims of the environmentalist movement. What the AfD is trying to do is shift the Overton Window by raising the legitimate and reasonable concerns of sections of the population that want a wider choice of political options than has been on offer from the established political parties in recent years. Such proposals are not “fascist”, “Nazi” or totalitarian. The Programme makes no mention of the Führer principle, the abolition of elections and political parties, the destruction of trade unions, the gagging of the press, the need for Lebensraum in the East or Aryan racial supremacy. True, there have been some unsavoury comments by individuals. One member who described Claus von Stauffenberg, the army officer who attempted to assassinate Hitler in July 1944, as a “coward” and a “traitor” was thrown out of the party. The party leadership is also seeking to expel another member over alleged antisemitism.

Alexander Gauland

The Saxon born journalist and historian, Alexander Gauland, had been a lifelong member of the CDU until in 2012 he and other conservative-minded members known as the Berlin Circle were told they had no future in the upper echelons of the party. This led them to set up the AfD in 2013. The CDU/CSU’s drift to the left opened up a gap on the right and they have filled it. In his book, Anleitung zum Konservativsein (Guide to Being Conservative) written some ten years earlier, Gauland bemoaned this leftwards shift. He argued that concepts such as Heimat (homeland), Leitkultur (leading or guiding culture) family, tradition and art had been discarded by the party. He lauded the English conservative thinker, Edmund Burke, as his model: a man of “moderation” and the “middle ground” who favoured organic and moderate reform to conserve what is worth conserving.

Gauland has himself admitted that AfD’s rise can in part be ascribed to the failings of the established parties, above all their unwillingness to address issues falling outside the narrow corridor of respectable opinion. AfD has on the other hand always been prepared to discuss openly and critically the difficulties of the Euro, the bailout of Greece, Merkel’s open-door migrant policy, migrant crime, Islam, multiculturalism, environmentalist hysteria and the threats to German identity posed by globalisation and globalism. The party brings a refreshing candour to political debate. This is surely the key to its rise.

The Brunswick party conference

Gauland has called AfD a “gäriger Haufen” (a group or a crowd in the process of fermentation) and, as we have seen, the party is not, as some would have us believe, a bunch of football hooligans brandishing the black, white and red flag of imperial Germany. At the federal party conference held in Brunswick in November 2019 co-chair Jörg Meuthen stated in his keynote speech that the party must now become “capable and willing to govern” and must be a “patriotic respectable middle-class party”. So far, of course, voices within the CDU/CSU calling for coalitions with AfD have been isolated but as the SPD swings to the left and the CDU/CSU runs adrift these voices may well begin to multiply.

L'articolo Is the Demonisation of Alternative for Germany (AfD) Justified? proviene da InsideOver.

On your marks, get set, go! Theresa May’s announcement in May 2019 to resign as Prime Minister of Britain once her successor has been elected caused a staggering number of Tory MPs to line up for the Conservative Party leadership election 2019. Ten candidates in total were willing to take a shot at running the country (for comparison, five candidates were running for the last Tory leadership election in 2016). This is quite surprising, given that the UK is currently facing one of the biggest political crises in decades. Whoever takes the reigns of power from May will have their hands full, governing a divided party which will then go on to run a divided country. But it is also a unique opportunity to secure a top spot in the history books as the PM who took Britain out of the EU, right next to the infamous Margaret “Iron Lady” Thatcher who took Britain into the then EEC on 1 January 1973.

The first ballot (there were five rounds of voting in total) took place in June and three Tory MPs didn’t make the cut: Andrea Leadsom, Mark Harper and Esther McVey. Shortly after, Channel 4 showed the first publicly televised leadership debate, with leadership candidate Boris Johnson being represented by an empty podium because he refused to participate in the hustings. This, combined with the fact that Johnson had been avoiding the public for some time, sparked criticism that he was hiding during the campaign. 

Nevertheless, Boris established himself as the frontrunner in the leadership race from the get-go with 114 votes, followed by Jeremy Hunt (43 votes) and Michael Gove (30 votes). His lead was surprisingly large, which begs the question – why did so many members of the Conservative Party favour him to become the next PM? After all, for many Britons, the former mayor of London is not exactly the embodiment of a popular or respectable statesman. Prior to the leadership election, the former Mayor of London spent a significant part of his political career making a name for himself as the “enfant terrible” of British politics, causing controversy with a string of sexist, homophobic and racist comments. However, Johnson was a key-figure for the “Vote Leave” campaign, the official campaign in favour of leaving the European Union during the 2016 EU referendum, and had a significant impact on its outcome. In the months leading up to the leadership election, Johnson reinforced his reputation as a hardline Brexiteer with sabre-rattling comments, like the idea that crashing out of the EU without a deal would be the “only safe route”. And since the members of the Conservative Party have been increasingly in favour of a no-deal Brexit, Johnson is deemed to be just the man for the job. It might come as no surprise that Boris has since recanted these statements, and did a considerable amount of flip-flopping with regards to Brexit and potential deals or no-deals. For example, he recently said that the chance of a no-deal Brexit was “a million to one against”, but he also refuses to rule out suspending parliament to push through a no-deal Brexit.

It is safe to assume that the Conservative Party was also hoping that Boris might be able to salvage urgently needed votes they had lost to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in the European Election in May 2019. Despite all of Johnson’s flaws (character and otherwise), he continually seems to get away with things that no other person would get away with. How does he do it? Ben Wright, political correspondent for the BBC, has the answer: “As far as most Tories are concerned, he is the party’s only superstar, and he has a proven record of winning elections because he stood for the mayoralty in London, which is quite a Labour city, and he won twice. The fact that he has star-power, the fact that he talks off the cuff, the fact that he is colourful, the fact that he does have this effervescent personality, the fact that he is happy to offend – Tory grassroots members seem to really like that.” What’s more, Johnson’s tough guy antics about Brexit were clearly directed towards the Conservative party (and not the general public) and he succeeded in boosting the party members backing as Ben Wright explains: “While about a quarter of the general public think that leaving the UK without a deal would be OK, about two thirds of the Tory grassroots think we should go without a deal.” And if you dig a little deeper: “An overwhelming 85% of Boris Johnson’s supporters want a no deal Brexit.”

And so it was pretty much plain sailing for Johnson. In the second and third round of the leadership contest, he secured the backing of 126 and 143 MPs respectively. His closest contender, Jeremy Hunt, received just 46 and 54 votes. The former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, Dominic Raab, and the International Development Secretary, Rory Stewart, were knocked out in the second and third round, which only left Johnson, Hunt, the Secretary of State Sajid Javid and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Gove, to wrestle for the top job. The next two rounds of voting whittled it down to two contenders: Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt. The current Foreign Secretary went straight on the offensive and promised his opponent “the fight of his life”.

Meanwhile, Boris was fighting on other fronts. A couple of days following the fifth ballot, the police were called to Johnson’s house late at night, because his neighbours had heard screaming and shouting, as well as banging, and were concerned for the welfare of Johnson’s 31-year-old girlfriend, Carrie Symonds. The police came and left after having been reassured that the couple was safe. According to the neighbours, Symonds was heard shouting: “You [Johnson] just don’t care for anything, because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything.” Johnson has so far denied to comment on the incident, despite being repeatedly questioned about it by the British press.

The leadership contest is now open to Tory party members, who will cast their votes in a postal ballot. The two candidates have to take part in a series of membership hustings, culminating in the final event on the 17th July in London. The 160,000 party members will receive their postal ballots between 6th and 8th July, and the final deadline for voting is Sunday 21st July. The new Prime Minister will then be declared on Monday 22nd July.

According to British bookmakers, Johnson is currently the clear favourite to replace Theresa May. Whether he is still the favourite with his girlfriend remains to be seen. The British tabloid The Sun claims that the couple had “four explosive rows in six weeks and nearly split up three weeks ago.” Well, you can’t keep everyone happy, can you?

L'articolo The Race to Become Britain’s Next PM proviene da InsideOver.

Dogs wore saltire bandanas, while people carried placards calling out ‘Ruth Davidson’ (Leader of the Scottish Conservatives), questioning her comments about there being “No Appetite” for a second referendum on Scottish independence. ‘Look around’ one sign demanded, ‘We are here and we are hungry. #it is time’

It was May, in Glasgow and the latest march for Scottish independence had attracted an estimated 30-35,000 die hard separatists. The National, Scotland’s staunchly pro-independence newspaper, suggested that the number attending the May march might have been as high as 90,000 (but I am basing my number on, and sticking with, the official police estimate).

The march, itself, had been organised by Scottish pro-independence movement ‘All Under One Banner’, formed on 12th October, 2014 by Neil McKay. McKay had formed the group in the slipstream of the support gathered to campaign for independence at the 2014 referendum.

Of those who voted in the Scottish independence referendum of Thursday, September 18, 2014 – and the turnout proved to be a credible 84.59 per cent – 55.3 per cent voted to stay in the union with 44.7 per cent wanting to leave. Ironically, at the time, Scots were warned that a vote to leave the United Kingdom would mean Scotland would be forced to leave the European Union. No one, of course, bargained on a UK Prime Minister going to the country two years later with yet another referendum, this time on leaving or staying in Europe.

David Cameron, some say bullied by his own party into holding the referendum, presided over a British electorate who, to many people’s astonishment – and especially that of the incumbent prime minister – voted to leave the European Union. Now, ‘Brexit’ (British exit), as it has come to be known, effectively threatens to take Scotland (as part of the United Kingdom) out of the European Union, even though the Scots voted by 62 per cent to 38 per cent to remain.

Prime Minister Theresa May has played European shuttle in a failing effort to secure her leaving deal. Three times she has attempted and failed to take her negotiated deal through parliament. May is now on her way out, making way for a multiple candidate battle for her job – there were, after all it seems, many knives ready to be plunged into her leadership.

Nostrils flaring, Scotland’s SNP (Scottish National Party) First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has smelled the scent of the possibility of independence wafting up again from the ashes of 2014. Helped, considerably, by the debacle that has followed in the wake of the European referendum vote and the British government’s inability to get a deal over the line, Sturgeon is picking up on what she believes is a change of mood in her own nation.

Meanwhile, Theresa May having agreed to stand aside, the scrum for her place is already underway with Boris Johnson the favourite to replace her. Johnson would not, however, be a popular choice in Scotland. One, formerly committed unionist and disenchanted Labour party supporter, who didn’t want to be named, told us he had resigned as a member of the party, dismayed by their handling of the Brexit situation. He also told that if Johnson became prime minister then even he ‘might’ vote for independence.

Now the SNP government in Scotland have published a second referendum bill as Sturgeon argues that another vote before 2021 would give the Scots a chance to stand alone as an independent nation or have Brexit imposed on it against its will. The framework published on Wednesday 29 May, follows in the wake of the SNP securing three MEP’s, from a possible six, elected to the European parliament while pulling in its highest ever European vote with 38 per cent of those who took part.

“The bill has just been introduced,” Michael Russell, the SNP government’s minister for constitutional relations told to InsideOver. “It will, I hope, be enacted at the turn of the year but we have made no decision as yet about the formal request for a Section 30 order. That process is the one in which the question would be set.” The section 30 request, of course, could be the biggest stumbling block to the Scots having another referendum on independence. It effectively means that the UK government would have to give the final nod to allow such a vote.

To hold a referendum without the agreement of the Westminster parliament would mean the devolved Scottish government in Edinburgh going it alone Catalonian-style, not something many commentators see happening. “The Scottish Government has made it clear that it intends to ensure full observance of the constitution in order to place beyond doubt the result of such a referendum,” Michael Russell is unequivocal. “That is also the best way to secure full international recognition of Scotland’s choice. It is untenable, for any UK Government to refuse the right of Scotland to choose its own future, and that point will be accepted by all democrats.” In truth it might be the ineptitude of the two main parties, Conservatives and Labour, in the face of Brexit that pushes the Scots into independence. Who could have predicted these vicissitudes of history? Will the Scots have the ‘appetite’ to say yes to self-determination at the second time of asking? It will depend on a number of factors. Who the new leader of the Conservative Party is and how they deal with Brexit. If a general election is held and what the result from that throws up. If a second European Union referendum is held and the result of that. These are strange times in the United Kingdom, and it just might be that the future of Scotland as an independent nation or, indeed, not, might rest with decisions to be made in the UK in the next six months.

L'articolo Scotland Revisits Independence in the Wake of the Brexit Quagmire proviene da InsideOver.